THE GUERRILLA PHOTOGRAPHER
Back in the ’80s, smuggling a camera into an LA gig required brains, nerves and lots of hiding space. See how Julian Stone managed it as he snapped Prince, Chuck Berry and more!
Commando photographer Julian Stone opens his archive of guerrilla shots of Prince, Bowie, Springsteen, and more!
WHEN 17-year-old rock fan and aspiring photographer Julian Stone went to see the Ramones at the Keystone in Palo Alto on April 23, 1983, he took his camera. “It hadn’t occurred to me I wouldn’t be allowed to take pictures,” he says. “When the security guard told me, ‘No cameras’, I was disappointed. I remember going back to my car to dump my bag and at that moment, I thought, There’s got to be another way around this.” Stone hid two lenses and his 35mm camera body in his socks and rolls of film in his underpants. “I saw the guard on the way back in, put the equipment together in the bathroom, came out and the Ramones hit the stage. I started shooting, and after that I was hooked!” His new book, No Cameras Allowed, charts his obsession over the following years. As an “outlaw photographer” who enjoyed the thrill of the challenge, he’d hit California’s clubs and venues – plus the odd trip to Europe – to take unauthorised images of the famous seen here. Advice? Make sure the security guard who frisks you is the bored-looking teenager of the team; look anonymous. “I got this navy pea coat that hung down almost to my ankles, and punched out the pockets, so you could hide equipment in the lining,” he continues. “They’d give you a pat-down but no one was ever going to go all the way down. Once, when I went to see R.E.M., the guy found a lens but I convinced him I’d forgotten it was there. I just went into this B.S. mode and he ended up letting me in. That was definitely part of it – be confident and keep moving forward. “Once you were in you were still exposed,” adds Stone, who says he was caught at a Duran Duran gig once. “So I’d pop up, take a picture, hide the camera under the coat. You had to know how to slip past people. The crowd isn’t necessarily your friend, but it certainly helped keep you hidden. But at a certain point, like when I photographed Prince, you had 10 rolls of film in your shoe, it’s the encore, everyone’s going crazy, and I’d get greedy and say, I’m gonna push this as far as I can. I remember standing on my chair by the end! And you wouldn’t be searched on the way out.” However, an increasing number of professional commissions was taking the fun out of it when he had to choose between rock photography and studies at film school. And then a technical hitch ruined a Bruce Springsteen shoot at Los Angeles’ Memorial Coliseum on October 2, 1985, so he bowed out. Interest in his archive was sparked three decades later when he shared images of Prince and Bowie, after their deaths in 2016, leading to a Kickstarter campaign for No Cameras Allowed. Stone is frustrated to say he sold the pea coat and much of his gear five years ago, but is pleased with the work. “I got away with it!” he laughs. “No question.” Ian Harrison No Cameras Allowed: My Career As An Outlaw Rock & Roll Photographer is available from juliandavidstone.com
“I’d pop up, take a picture, hide the camera under the coat…” JULIAN STONE